Climate Change Mass Extinction

For John, BLUF:  Not all we hear about species extinction will square up with the facts.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Gregory Wrightstone:  exposing the mass extinction lie

Here is the sub-headline:

From What's Up With That, by Charles the Moderator, 27 May 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

One million species will become extinct in the not-too-distant future and we are to blame.  That is the conclusion of a new study by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).  The Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was issued on May 6th {the full report will be issued “later this year} and warns that “human actions threaten more species with global extinction now than ever before” and that “around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, unless action is taken to reduce the intensity of drivers of biodiversity loss.”

It also asserted that we have seen increasing dangers over the last several decades, stating “the threat of extinction is also accelerating:  in the best-studied taxonomic groups, most of the total extinction risk to species is estimated to have arisen in the past 40 years.”  The global rate of species extinction claimed “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years.”

The release of the report spawned a media frenzy that uncritically accepted the study’s contention that we will see more than 20,000 species per year bite the dust in the not too distant future.  PBS called it the “current mass extinction,” and the New Yorker’s headline read “Climate Change and the New Age of Extinction.”

Then there is this paragraph, with a reference to a chart in the story:

Below, all 529 species available from the Red List with a known extinction date are shown below in Figure 2 by decade of extinction.  This chart reveals quite a different story than that advanced by the new report.  Instead of a steady increase in the number and rate of extinctions we find that extinctions peaked in the late 1800s and the early 20th century, followed by a significant decline that continues today.  It is thought that this extinction peak coincides with introduction of non-native species, primarily on islands (including Australia).

We need to be aware of species loss, but we have to take a wholistic approach, so we don't dame one species at the expense of another.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff